Reports on Schools Cite Student Discontent (DC)

[MountainLaurel]

The question to a focus group of Dunbar High students was: What did they like best about going to school there?

"Freedom," said one who takes Advanced Placement classes at the school in Northwest Washington. "We can do whatever we want at this school. That's the only good thing about this place."

At Green Elementary School in Southeast, one child urged: "Give us harder work, not the busywork that we already know."

"They let us struggle," a student at Lincoln Middle School in Northwest said of the teachers. "They let you know you are failing, but then let you go on struggling and then send you to summer school."

These are voices from some of the city's 27 worst-performing schools, as reported by evaluation teams deployed over the winter by Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee. For five years, the schools -- six elementary, 11 middle and 10 high -- have failed to hit reading and math test benchmarks established by the federal No Child Left Behind law. The measure required Rhee to make major changes to the schools' leadership and academic programs.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/19/AR2008051902437.html